FAQ

Each tools is provided with one or more written documentation and tutorial videos. For further support you may join the Discord server.

Yes, this option is enabled on the Artstation store.

Procedural denotes an item which is obtained through computation. User sets up parameters and a generator creates the item based on these parameter values. For texturing and materials, this has several benefits:

• Resolution independence: the texture may be generated at any resolution.
• Non-destructive: modifying a parameter value changes the design, but going back to the previous value restores it exactly as it was previously.
• Random variations: a procedural generator usually features a "random seed" to handle random variations. This means some aspects of the procedural generation may be randomized within certain ranges, and this seed references such a random variation. Modifying the seed value, all the random properties take new values and the design randomly changes within defined parameters. Going back to a previous seed value restores the design exactly as it was before the change.

PBR stands for Physically Based Rendering. This is a Computer Graphics (CG) technique used to approximate some physical properties of real-wold materials (in particular regarding light) in a standardized way for renderers/game engines. This translates into a set of textures, each defining values for a given material property. Most of our tools generate PBR textures which may be used in any supporting PBR renderer/game engine.

A Substance is a term coming from the Adobe Substance 3D ecosystem. It is represented as a binary file with the SBSAR extension (or SBS extension for the source material), is created into Substance 3D Designer and may be used into any Substance 3D host (as SBSAR). This is a procedural or parametric material requirering a Substance 3D runtime/host to be rendered. Substances generate PBR textures of any resolution using a set of user defined parameters. The main benefits of Substances are:

• Portability: any Substance 3D host can render a Substance. Many CG software support Substances through add-ons/plugins, such as Blender. Substance 3D is also an industry standard in Computer Graphics and video games.
• Lightweight: SBSAR are only a few kilo-bytes and may generate up to 8K PBR textures.
• Parametric & Realtime: modifying a Substance parameter automatically generates a new render almost instantly (GPU support).
• Qualitative: Substances may generate extremely realistic and complex materials fully procedurally.

Most of our tools consist in Substances and benefit from these properties.

HairTG-Cards is a the most recent installment of the HairTG hair card tools, whereas HairTG-Hair&Fur is the legacy tool. HairTG-Cards is designed on new bases to improve the ease of use, obtain results quickly, includes numerous hair presets and supports Substance 3D Painter in addition to Designer. It also brings new concepts in order to let the artist have more control of various aspects of the hair.

The Pro variant for Substance 3D Designer is also very different from the legacy tool with new design concepts, ability to control several hair instances at once and create Morph Shapes. If you are starting with the HairTG hair card tools, it is recommended to opt for HairTG-Cards.

If you wish to design your hair card textures in Substance 3D Designer, HairTG-Cards Pro provides an updated workflow with more control about the hair shaping making it easier and more predictable to obtain the result you're after. HairTG-Cards has the ability to control multiple hair instances at once (directly in graph, no plugin) and better performance due to the decoupling of hair parameters and rendering.

HairTG-Cards also enables to design the hair textures directly in Substance 3D Painter, starting from dozens of high-quality presets, and edit the hair textures in realtime.

Yes! HairTG-Cards Mini is free, it is a limited version of HairTG-Cards with enough features to experiment with the workflow. It also includes a tutorial video.